Mar

Exclusive: leading letting agency calls for Right to Rent reform

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London firm Chestertons tells LandordZONE that the system is causing major problems for agents, landlords and tenants and should be enforced by the government, not private citizens.

A leading letting agency has called for major reform of the contentious Right to Rent scheme.

Guy Gittins, managing director of
global firm Chestertons believes the Government – not landlords – should be
responsible for checking would-be tenants’ immigration status.

Says Gittins:
“We would like to see the responsibility for Right to Rents checks – the cost
of which is also passed on to tenants in the form of higher rent – removed from
landlords and their managing agents and handed over to the Home Office.”

Richard Davies, Chestertons’ head of lettings, tells LandlordZONE that Right to Rent can cause issues for new
tenancies, especially when two tenants arrive at different times and only one
of them is present for the start date of the tenancy.

“Additional paperwork needs to
be actioned to accommodate such scenarios,” he says. “This is something that we
often see, on a weekly basis.”

He adds that last summer, nationals arriving
from the USA or Australia didn’t receive a stamp in their passport on arrival,
and entry was held digitally, however, agents were still checking for stamps. “It
took a whole month for us to be informed by the Home Office about the change.”

Currently,
any landlord found to have rented to someone who doesn’t have the required
immigration status will face a fine of up to £3,000 or a criminal sentence.

The Joint
Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) believes
the Right to Rent scheme should be scrapped immediately.

“This
sort of discrimination is caused by the government’s decision to turn private
individuals, including landlords…into border guards,” Chai Patel, legal policy director,
tells LandlordZONE.

“It’s
wrong that private individuals are being conscripted into immigration
enforcement in this way, and we welcome all those who join the campaign for the
‘hostile environment’ to be scrapped.”

Last year, it bought a case
against the Home Office in the High Court, which
agreed that Right to Rent causes racial discrimination. As
a result, the Government was forced to halt its plans to roll the scheme out to
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. After the Government appealed, it’s now
waiting to hear whether the Court of Appeal will rule in its favour.

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